News review – Monday 17 June 2019

Farage

Telegraph
Conservative Party donors have opened secret talks with Nigel Farage about an electoral pact which would see the party not stand candidates against the Brexit Party in dozens of seats at a snap general election. Speculation is growing that the next Tory leader will have to call a snap election to bring in new MPs who will agree to take the UK out of the European Union by the end of October. A new poll in the Sunday Times put Mr Farage’s Brexit Party in first place on 24 per cent, three points ahead of the Tories and Labour on 21 per cent. The news emerged as Johnny Leavesley, the head of the party’s biggest donor group the Midlands Industrial Council, wrote in The Telegraph that the next Prime Minister “needs to be willing to work with Farage”.

Telegraph
One of the Conservative contenders to be crowned party leader and Prime Minister next month has personally asked Nigel Farage to work with him to deliver Brexit. The news came as a new poll in the Sunday Times put the Brexit Party in first place on 24 per cent, three points ahead of the Tories and Labour on 21 per cent. Mr Stewart also said that he wanted to “use the Brexit Party’s success to put an electric shock through Parliament and get it through”.

Independent
Tory leadership hopeful Rory Stewart has reached out to Nigel Farage by saying he wanted to work with the Brexit Party so the UK could exit the European Union. Parliament had to “find a route” to deliver Brexit, he told Mr Farage during an appearance on his LBC radio show “which is why I want to make an offer to you.” “You represent such an important part of this debate,” he said. He added: “The fact you actually lead us out of Europe in the first place puts you in a very important position in this.

Express
CONSERVATIVE Party donors have opened secret talks with Nigel Farage which could see the party not stand candidates against the Brexit Party if a snap election is called by the next leader. As reported by The Daily Telegraph, the suggestion is the Brexit Party would not stand against Tory Brexiteers and the Tories would not contest seats in traditional Labour seats in the north, where the Brexit Party has polled strongly.

Sun
CONSERVATIVES could reportedly be set to do a deal with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party which would see Tories pull out of fighting certain seats at the next general election. Farage confirmed he had been approached by Tory party donors but added his party is currently planning to contest every seat. The Telegraph reports a deal could see the Tories stand aside in Brexit-voting Labour heartland seats in which the Brexit Party has a chance of beating Jeremy Corbyn’s party

Westmonster
Pro-Brexit Conservative MPs have told Boris Johnson that they will join the Brexit Party if he doesn’t deliver Brexit on 31st October. The Sunday Express have splashed with the story that MPs in the European Research Group have said they could defect if Brexit isn’t delivered at the end of October, as Boris Johnson has promised. Writing for the paper, Brexit Party Leader Nigel Farage says today: “On the Brexit Party’s social media pages, we have a calendar counting down the days until the date they have promised we will leave.

No deal

Mail
Veteran Tory Ken Clarke today joined threats to ‘bring down’ any PM who tries to force No Deal Brexit. The former chancellor said he was ready to vote no confidence in any ‘idiot’ who made a bid to take the UK out of the EU without approval from Parliament. The stark message was clearly directed at Boris Johnson, who has insisted he will ensure the UK leaves the bloc by Halloween – with or without a deal. The leadership front runner has also refused to rule out suspending Parliament in October to stop MPs from blocking No Deal.

Breitbart
Outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May has vowed to stop the UK leaving the EU without a deal by aligning with Remainers in the Tory Party including Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Amber Rudd and Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond. Sources close to Mrs May toldThe Mail on Sunday that despite her failure to pass the EU-approved withdrawal treaty, she has “not budged” from her position that UK should not leave the bloc unless it has an exit deal.

Express
KEN CLARKE has vowed he will vote to bring down any “idiot” future Tory prime minister if they try to force a no deal Brexit through Parliament. In a scathing attack against his own Conservative Party, the former chancellor accused the Conservative leadership candidates of engaging in “fantasy” by pledging to take the UK out of the European Union on October 31, with or without a deal. Speaking to The Observer, Mr Clarke claimed the Tories are in “turmoil internally and deeply unpopular with the general public”.

Mail
One of Jeremy Hunt’s most senior allies warned yesterday that MPs would block No Deal in October – and could even bring down the Government. Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd said the number of Tories prepared to vote against a No Deal prime minister in a confidence vote was ‘easily there’. Mr Hunt insisted yesterday that if he became prime minister he would leave without a deal if it was a choice between that and No Brexit.

Times
Conservative MPs could bring down the government if there is an attempt to force through a no-deal Brexit, Amber Rudd has warned. In a thinly veiled criticism of Boris Johnson, the work and pensions secretary also said that it was a mistake to suggest that Britain should leave the EU by October 31. Ms Rudd, who is supporting Jeremy Hunt’s leadership bid, told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics that “a number of colleagues” would vote against the government rather than allow no-deal.

Independent
Cabinet minister Amber Rudd has revealed she believes there is a sufficient number of Tory MPs who are willing to topple a government intent on leaving the EU without a Brexit deal. The remarks from the work and pensions secretary came as the former Conservative chancellor Ken Clarke vowed to take the extraordinary step as a last resort if “some idiot was sailing onto a no-deal Brexit”. A second senior Tory, Dominic Grieve, told the House of Commons last week he would vote against the government in a motion of no confidence in the same circumstances.

Express
BORIS JOHNSON has been warned not to pursue a no deal Brexit if he wins the Conservative Party’s leadership contest. The former foreign secretary received the highest number of votes in the first MPs’ ballot to select the next Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister last week. He stormed ahead with 114 votes, which was more than Jeremy Hunt, who came second with 43, and Michael Gove in third with 37. Mr Johnson said he was “delighted but also warned his campaign “still had a long way to go”.

EU

Westmonster
European Union officials do not believe that Boris Johnson will deliver Brexit on 31st October, as he has promised to do. The Daily Mail’s Brussels correspondent David Churchill reports that EU officials instead believe that PM Boris would u-turn instead. The outcome would instead see Boris attempt to sell an amended version of Theresa May’s disaster deal or seek a ‘controlled No Deal’ that would mean the UK wouldn’t leave until at least 2020. A senior EU source even told the Mail: “A lot of people are scared about Boris, but I don’t think he is the worst of all.

£39billion

Telegraph
Boris Johnson will have to over-rule existing government legal advice if he wants to make good on his promise to withhold the £39bn Brexit bill in order to win a better deal from the EU, The Telegraph can reveal. Mr Johnson, who is now hot favourite to win the Tory leadership contest, has threatened to “retain” the promised financial settlement until the European Union has provided “greater clarity” about the future EU-UK trading relationship.

Theresa May

MailTheresa May has been accused of trying to tie Boris Johnson‘s hands as she seeks to push through a £27billion funding pledge for education. She is understood to be planning to present her three-year plan to Cabinet as soon as tomorrow as part of a bid to shore up her legacy. Government sources said she ‘is still Prime Minister’ and ‘education is very high on her list of priorities’. However, the move is being resisted by the Treasury amid claims it would be ‘immoral’ to limit the ability of Mrs May’s successor to deliver on their own pledges.

TimesTheresa May will announce plans today to ban the use of police cells to hold people with a mental illness. Under the plans teachers, healthcare staff, social workers and local authority staff will be offered training to identify signs of mental illness and help young people at risk of self-harm or suicide. The announcement is a further sign that, after her failure to deliver Brexit, Mrs May intends to use her remaining weeks in Downing Street to leave a legacy that addresses the “burning injustices” she identified when she became prime minister in 2016.

Sun
THERESA May faces uproar over binding the hands of her successor to a £27 billion legacy spend on education. The PM’s plans are estimated to cost up to £9 billion extra annually but Philip Hammond fears it could hold the Tory leadership winner to ransom. The three-year cash bonanza would include boosting teachers’ pay, provide extra training and help struggling schools. Whitehall figures are furious the PM wants the money decided now rather than by whoever next enters Downing Street.

Conservative Home
Theresa May seems determined to use her last weeks in office to make substantial announcements in the hope that people might think better of her and her premiership. It’s a forlorn hope in my opinion but with this week’s pledge to make Britain the first major nation in the world to commit to zero net carbon emissions Operation Theresa May Wasn’t That Useless is very much underway.

Tory leadership

Telegraph
Channel 4 was accused by Tory MPs of attempting to “sideline” Dominic Raab, the one ‘hard’ Brexiteer, in the first television debate of the party’s leadership race on Sunday. Tory MPs complained that the debate had been “geared up” to encourage the leadership candidates to “knock chunks out of each other”. The complaints appeared to vindicate the decision by Boris Johnson, the runaway favourite, not to attend the 90 minute long primetime hustings, saying last week it would be “cacophonous”. One of the camps also claimed the 120-strong audience – which had meant to be split 47 per cent for and against Brexit, and 6 per cent ‘don’t know’ – had been biased against leaving the EU.

Express
TORY leadership candidate and Brexiteer Dominic Raab was last night “sidelined” in a primetime Channel 4 debate, furious Tory MPs have claimed. Conservative MPs accused the national broadcaster of anti-Brexit “bias” as they claimed the debate had been “geared up” to encourage the candidates to “knock chunks out of each other”. Their grievances appeared to vindicate frontrunner Boris Johnson’s decision not to take part. One Brexiteer Tory MP told the Daily Telegraph: “Watching Channel 4 and the ganging up on Raab one could be forgiven for thinking there had never been a referendum.

TimesBoris Johnson was taunted by his fellow leadership contenders during their first televised debate last night as the frontrunner was represented for 90 minutes by an empty lectern. Jeremy Hunt said that the former foreign secretary’s refusal to turn up raised questions about his ability to be prime minister, Rory Stewart suggested he wanted one of the five who had turned up to win the contest and Sajid Javid referred dismissively to “this guy” while gesturing at the vacant space.

Guardian
The five men vying to take on Boris Johnson in the Conservative leadership race made a slew of promises to tackle illiteracy, fix the broken social care system and reunify Britain after Brexit as they clashed in the first televised debate. Johnson was attacked by the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, for failing to appear in Sunday night’s debate, at which he was represented by an empty lectern.

Labour Party

IndependentLabour must return the issue of Brexit to the people in a second referendum and proudly champion the case for remaining in the EU, the party’s deputy leader Tom Watson will urge Jeremy Corbyn today. In a major speech – nearly three years on since the referendum – he will say that being part of Europe is an “emotional issue”, as he issues a renewed plea to the Labour leadership to fight for a future inside the bloc amid the danger of a no-deal Brexit.

Sky News
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson is to urge his party to “strongly” make the case for the UK staying in the EU. In a speech later, he will reiterate his push for another referendum to break the Brexit deadlock – saying Labour’s “hearts are Remain”. Leader Jeremy Corbyn has so far resisted calls to fully back another public vote, saying the party would support it in certain circumstances. That position was blamed for Labour’s performance at the European elections.

Guardian
Tom Watson is to challenge Jeremy Corbyn to put Labour at the forefront of the campaign against Brexit, using a speech on Monday to say: “Our members are remain, our values are remain, our hearts are remain.” The deputy leader’s latest intervention would have come ahead of a tricky meeting of Labour’s divided shadow cabinet – but members were told on Sunday evening that the meeting had been cancelled at short notice.

Cannabis

Mail
Nine in ten cannabis users and growers in some areas of England are being let off without a criminal charge, a Mail investigation reveals. Despite a string of warnings over the drug’s harmful long-term effects, many are getting away with a simple telling-off. Figures show the proportion of users who are charged for possession of cannabis has fallen sharply. Across England, an average of just 22 per cent of possession offences led to a criminal charge last year – down from 27 per cent in 2017.

Sun
CANNABIS use is being ‘unofficially legalised’ according to campaigners after new figures show up to nine out of ten people caught with the drug are never charged. In some areas just 12 per cent of people caught with the drug never go before a court and escape with punishments such as a warning or a caution. Across England, an average of just 22 per cent of possession offences led to a criminal charge last year, down from 27 per cent in 2017.

Illegal immigration

Breitbart
More boat migrants have been intercepted in the English Channel in the first six months of 2019 than in the whole of last year. The number of illegal migrants intercepted by authorities at Britain’s sea ports has risen to 511, with 152 of those arriving since the start of June alone, according to The Telegraph, while 312 people reached the UK in dinghies and other small boats in the whole of 2018. In reaction to the rising numbers of illegal landings, Conservative MP for Dover Charlie Elphike wrote: “[The] crisis now threatens to turn into a Summer of chaos on the Channel.

Rail travel

Mail
Hundreds of thousands of commuters, race-goers and music fans face misery as a five-day rail strike starts tomorrow. The Rail and Maritime Union (RMT) action will disrupt services run by South Western Railway, one of Britain’s busiest commuter services, and hit Royal Ascot, one of the most popular race meetings of the year. The train guard strike is set to continue until Saturday, when Royal Ascot finishes.

ITV News
Rail services on some of the busiest routes in the country will be disrupted this week because of a five-day strike in the long-running dispute over guards on trains. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union on South Western Railway will walk out from Tuesday, hitting services including busy commuter trains into London Waterloo. Services will be cancelled or disrupted and the stoppage coincides with the Royal Ascot horse race meeting.

Flooding

Sun
HUNDREDS of homes have been evacuated following severe flooding – and the local MP has warned residents are “by no means out of the woods”. Residents in at least 590 homes in Wainfleet and Thorpe Culvert, in Lincolnshire, have been told to leave as waters continued to surge this weekend, with further heavy rain predicted. The town first flooded on Wednesday after more than two months’ worth of rain fell in two days, causing the River Steeping to burst its banks

Grooming gang

Telegraph
The Home Office is under pressure to explain why members of the Rochdale grooming gang who preyed on girls as young as 12 have not been deported despite them losing a £1 million taxpayer-funded legal action against their removal. The four including the ringleader of the gang Shabir Ahmed, 66, received more than £1 million in legal aid in an unsuccessful attempt to fight deportation after they were convicted of serious sex offences against the girls.

Mail
The victims of a notorious Rochdale grooming gang have been ‘failed again’ after it emerged four men have still not been deported a decade after preying on girls as young as 12. Shabir Ahmed, 66, Qari Abdul Rauf, 50, Abdul Aziz, 48 and Adil Khan, 49, were among nine men convicted in 2012 of a catalogue of serious sex offences against vulnerable victims in Rochdale. As the only groomers to have dual UK-Pakistani citizenship, they were at risk of being deported back to Pakistan – but none of the four appear to have been deported or be facing deportation.

Terror attack

Mail
One of those carried to paramedics was French chef Sebastien Belanger, 36, who had a ‘real possibility’ of surviving had he received prompt treatment, according to pathologist Dr Benjamin Swift. Mr Belanger’s brother Julien told the Mail the family want to know why paramedics ‘did not immediately rush’ to the aid of the four victims in the courtyard. The Old Bailey inquest has heard ambulance crews waited at rendezvous points 150 yards away from Green Dragon Court – the focal point of the attack.

About The Author

Debbie has been a journalist for longer than she cares to admit! She has been freelance for the last 15 years and is deputy editor on INDEPENDENCE Daily, specialising in covering the morning press each day.

7 Comments

Next you will be telling me youngsters are taught to ‘know’ all about global warming, end of the world and so on and encourage them to skip school. Three Rs? not important.

I liked the way the pompous ass was recorded without his knowing.

There are only two tyes of chomosones – XX = female; XY = male.

My kids put me right. Dad you are right, but in school inconvienient truths are frowned upon. Seems that like me (shy and retiring) when at school they went for the teaching throat along with others, and then put such things forward to the debating society and won.
Bottom line, as the teacher was Scotch – ‘take that ya bazza’..

A year ago “Useable Operational Capacity” was 86,524 so it dropped by 1,582
Currently we have space for additional 2,242 prisoners.
The crime detection is below 20% on average with some crimes like rapes (57,600 recorded last year), violence with injury (539,767 last year) or burglary (424,846 last year) below this mark.

We simply do not have a space to imprison all the criminals, I do understand some of them will commit multiple offences.
Solution: increase police force and operational capacity of prison multiple time. Deport all criminal with foreign citizenship immediately with life ban to visit the UK (empowered with collecting the fingerprints from all foreigners entering the UK and heaving the database of banned ones). Zero tolerance to crime and as it was proved in many studies inevitable punishment for crime is bigger deterrent than potential harsher punishment. .

State spends more than ten times more on a health than the police not to mention welfare.

Ken P
on June 17, 2019 at 10:36 am

Labour Party:
Judging by Tom Watson’s recent remarks it looks as though Labour are finally getting off the fence and preparing to reveal what they have been all along, a Remain Party. Are they really prepared to ditch their working class Leave voters in the North in favour of the multi-cultural, diversified, voters in London and the South? Obviously they’ve seen the rise in the vote for the openly anti-Brexit Lib Dems and now want to jump on the same band wagon. IMHO big mistake for them, but in a GE could split the Remain vote and leave the way clear for the Brexit Party.

Debbie
on June 17, 2019 at 10:42 am

They’re not the only ones getting off the fence Ken. We’ve always known Labour were a remain party -it was only the Brexiteer Corbyn who stopped them announcing it. Similarly, the Tories were also remainers at heart, despite the PM saying ‘Brexit means Brexit’ hundreds of times. And the PM herself was never a Brexiteer – at least, with her recent actions, she’s showing that to everybody.

T G Spokes
on June 17, 2019 at 2:30 pm

I seem to recall that from time to time all the parties have gone from one stance to another . On every occasion the various leaders have tried to bully their members to one persuasion or the other. It never works. .This is why we have had cowardly leaders signing treaties quietly without pomp and collecting rewards later etc.. I would guess that the EU is scrupulous in payment of bribes and enducements. They are certainly not mean with incentives using your own money. Billions go down that particular drain ( Swamp )

Politicians themselves are the problem. they insist on seeking advantage. Cameron tried to make it non political and seperate it out . But they insist on trapping themselves.

Any half decent leader would have seperated it out and made it a Free Vote question. But, Mrs May is not anything but cunning, stubborn and a sly also blatent liar ..And always has been but protected by Cameron and George who are on a different level. These traits . had worked for her in the past

I hope and think Boris is a bit cleverer. But we are where we are so. He still now has to take the sting out of it and at the same time be firm but unforgiving with the EU.

It’s all there to play for. But these ideas of rank and file MPs must be dumped.

IMHO Only Boris with his peculiar character and attributes is capable of this. He has say 2 months to create a different Britain.with the sting and hatred gone and replaced with the vast majority on side.Nigel is essential, but the Brexit party hasto be calmed down to make anything possible.

T G Spokes
on June 17, 2019 at 5:30 pm

What Boris could do.

When we joined the ” Common Market.” By referedum Fraudulently but never mind, by our actions we ( the people ) have accepted that and still think this way ( I think ).I think the EU might agree given no alternative.

In order to give ” equality” and to tether us to the same inefficiency as the EU, We have passed many commercially inspired and hamstringing laws/regulation into our body of law. and obviously they want the inquisition laws of the ECJ and ECHR etc THIS THEY MUST NOT HAVE….So we offer an alternative using our courts and less political interferience.

WE in UK do not understand the desire for controlling our seas and sea bed.Has no one noticed those things in the North Sea. I think called Drilling Rigs.. Thes things are standing on the sea bed. Yes that’s right. They could easily be blocks of flats. and the land is only a few feet down. Holland could easily drain and surround Scotland. . Perfect for immigrants. ( Bad joke ) The last big land rush.

A BIG BIG prize for EU

Incidentally, thats where rubbish could go to raise the sea bed.for sealife habitats

As she says KBO

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